Critical Care

official impact factor 4.60

Letter

Minimising drug errors in critically ill patients

Andrew Carson-Stevens1,2*, Christopher D Hingston2 and Matt P Wise2

Author Affiliations

1 Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, CF14 4YS, UK

2 Adult Critical Care, University Hospital of Wales, CF14 4XW, UK

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Critical Care 2010, 15:401 doi:10.1186/cc9366


See related research article by Klopotowska et al., http://ccforum.com/content/14/5/R174

Published: 11 January 2011

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Klopotowska and colleagues underscore the value of the hospital pharmacists' expertise in reducing medication errors and improving patient safety in critical care [1]. The authors emphasise that drug inaccuracies are frequent and that the limited physiological reserve of critically ill individuals increases the potential harm of adverse prescribing. Critically ill patients represent a unique population with altered pharmacokinetics, and it is likely that the rate of suboptimal prescribing may be even greater than suggested by the current study [2,3]. Notably, Klopotowska and colleagues identified that most errors were focused on drug monitoring and suboptimal and incorrect dosing; typically involving antibiotics, drugs used less frequently in critical care and drugs with rapid-change profiles such as anti-thrombotics.